Interesting Internet Items Over the Past Week.

I try to read more books instead of stuff on the internet.¹ I recently finished (and recommend with enthusiasm) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, which is both depressing and amusing. I put it in the same category as Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, a book I consider essential reading for everyone.

Here are some interesting items from the internet, rather than books, I read over the past week:

The Ghosts in Our Machines

When’s the last time you’ve spotted someone you know on Google Maps? I never had. And my mother, besides, is no longer alive. It couldn’t be her.

Strong Placebo Response Thwarts Painkiller Trials

But the finding that placebo responses are rising only in the United States is the most surprising aspect of the latest analysis.

How Government Killed the Medical Profession

Once free to be creative and innovative in their own practices, doctors are becoming more like assembly-line workers, constrained by rules and regulations aimed to systemize their craft.

The Violence of Algorithms

Much of the data used was inputted and tagged by humans, meaning that it was chock full of human bias and errors. The algorithms on which the system is built are themselves coded by humans, so they too are subjective. Perhaps most consequentially, however, although the program being demonstrated was intended to inform human decision-making, that need not be the case.

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